I want to run.
I want to climb those blue mountains and taste the fresh snow at the top. Yet my feet will not move. Here I stand below, with hands outreached toward something I can never touch. Oh, the weakness of my mind and body I detest! The strength to rise above, for how many is it but a dream? I lower my head in embittered acceptance as my hands fall limply to my sides.
Yet as I turn away in regret, the green brush teases my fingertips with its callous touch and I find my gaze drawn to its rough beauty.
A smile tugs at my lips as the wind rustles through the field, swirling through leaf and blade in a playful dance.
Far ahead and far behind, I see the silhouettes of strangers running toward their dreams. They blur by me with nary a glance, the grass bent in their wake. Is it a race or a challenge? I know not. Yet as I look up at the figures climbing the steep mountainside, I wonder…
What are we so desperately running after that we embrace the blur of life? Or perhaps it is what we are running from that instills the fear of slowing down, of listening to the silence.
I shake my head slowly, stepping deeper into the brush as I trail my fingers along sunlit foliage.
I stop walking, looking at the trees in the distance and the mountains behind, oh the beauty I chose not to see.
As I stand in the center of the field of green, I let out a breath, closing my eyes. I do not cry, I do not sing, I simply breathe. All around me, from the swaying trees to the flowing brook, the world breathes in unison.
And so though I cannot run, I step forward, for those who walk through life see a different perspective than those who blur by.
Whether you reach the mountain top or taste the scent of spring from below; there are different perspectives to be seen everywhere. Rough, broken, and breathtaking, so is beauty, so is life.
© Faith Fawks
Photo by M.E.F